National Treasury alone cannot support road upgrades

It is simply not feasible to
fund road upgrades and
maintenance without some sort
of additional revenue generator,
such as tolling. This especially
as the national fiscus is under
increasing demands from its
citizens, including students
demanding free education,
according to Sanral.
There had been other
suggestions, such as an
increase in fuel levy and vehicle
licence fees, Alex van Niekerk,
manager: toll and traffic of the
South African National Roads
Agency Limited (Sanral), told
delegates at the recent Special
Interest Group (SIG) Transport
Forum.
However, Sanral’s
calculations show that the
current estimated fuel levy
income (R46 billion) and the
current estimated revenue from
vehicle licence fees (R7.2 billion)
are not nearly
enough to cover
the current
maintenance
backlog for
national and
provincial
roads, which is
estimated to be
R197 billion.
“The
majority of
funding is
still supplied
by National
Treasury but
we’ve seen
the increased demands being
placed on the national fiscus
and there simply isn’t enough
money to cover the shortfall of
billions of rands – which keeps
rising every year,” said Van
Niekerk.
According to
him, with the
current baseline
allocation for
national roads
of just under
R60bn from
Treasury, the
national road
network would
deteriorate
from 11% of
poor and very
poor roads in
2014 to 47%
of the network
in poor or very poor condition
by 2024.
“This approach will be
disastrous for road users
throughout South Africa,
and thus for the economy of
South Africa,” Van Niekerk
commented, noting that over
the past three decades (since
1986), South Africa had been
spending considerably less
than half of the international
benchmark for road
construction and maintenance.
“This is why the maintenance
backlog is so high,” he pointed
out, adding that several urgent
national road projects had
already been delayed due
to lack of funding. “And the
problem is, the more expansion
projects are delayed, the more
expensive they become in the
long run.”
He said that Sanral’s funding
options were limited to direct
allocation from the fiscus
and through toll revenue and
concessions.
“If toll revenue becomes
obsolete, Sanral will have to
further delay maintenance on
the old road network and find a
way to maintain – not expand –
congested portions of network,”
said Van Niekerk.
Whity Maphakela, director:
road infrastructure and
industry development at the
Department of Transport
(DoT), agreed that funding
for the national road network
was “crucial”. He said that the
DoT was addressing it through
national policy changes and
that a consultation process
would be launched before the
end of the year.
INSERT
There simply isn’t
enough money to
cover the shortfall
of billions of rands
― which keeps rising
every year.
– Alex van Niekerk